OPINION: Speaker reminds us homelessness is a human issue

This editorial was published in the Yakima Herald-Republic.

It probably isn’t much consolation to Yakima’s social-services community, but they’re not the only ones who are still struggling to address homelessness.

The issue is rooted deep in the human psyche, and it’s entangled with developmental, economic, domestic and social issues that can twist it into knots that might never get loosened.

One of the nation’s most noted experts on homelessness, Dr. Jim O’Connell, of Boston, acknowledged as much during a talk last month at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima. O’Connell has worked with patients for nearly 40 years at the Health Care for the Homeless Program in his hometown. He’s also served as a federal official and continues to teach medicine at Harvard University.

“There’s no easy solution or no one solution. It’s a mosaic of solutions,” according to O’Connell, whose work is featured in Tracy Kidder’s New York Times best-seller, “Rough Sleepers.”

O’Connell has focused on delivering medical care to people experiencing homelessness, but that’s just one aspect of the problem. Addressing the many needs of people living in the streets — including housing and financial supports — can strain any community’s resources and patience.

Considering recent local and national developments, a lot of people are out of tolerance and low on compassion.

A Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, for example, cleared the way for municipalities to enact ordinances that prohibit people from falling asleep in public parks and other places. That’s emboldened local officials, who have turned to indirectly punitive measures aimed at making homelessness even more uncomfortable. Recent steps include new city rules calling for fining people who are pushing shopping carts down the street and a county policy to clear homeless campsites and seize belongings.

Meantime, voters just elected a president who’s not exactly known for his kindness — and he’s already laying plans to slash federal budgets, which will undoubtedly dramatically reduce resources for social services across the board.

Overall, the mood and message is unmistakable: Most Americans don’t particularly care what people experiencing homelessness are going through. They just don’t want to deal with them anymore.

For people like O’Connell and the thousands of professionals and volunteers across the country who’ve spent decades trying to provide shelter, comfort and solutions to people who have nowhere to go, it must be a discouraging time.

Still, we hope O’Connell’s message of acknowledging and respecting people experiencing homelessness isn’t lost on our community.

The problems the unhoused are facing affect us all. Whether it’s the discomfort of a frightening encounter on a street, the threat of fires from campsites or the costs to businesses that are forced to clean up after unwanted loiterers, we all share their burden in some way.

So it’s up to us to share in the solutions.

No, the answers aren’t simple, but they don’t have to be heartless, either.

As O’Connell told his Yakima audience: “There’s nobody who’s out there because they want to be. We have to see all these people as our brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles.”

TNS